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Life is an infinite continuum, feeding on its own death. Our mortality, real and imagined, lives within. We can always see these truths with a discerning eye. The mirrored images that seem like two, are but one, a parallel universe whose paths cross like a wisp of wind, we are all of one time, like prose and poems written in separate centuries, but of the same struggle. There, always there, truth never hides, except for those who don’t seek it for fear of what they might find. From light to dark we fly in different directions though toward the same destination. What matters is what we do on our flight. Do we see the paths of leaves as they float on the pond, the reflection of the sky beyond, and the trees, who have now shed their leaves but will reflect full in the spring; beneath the leaves, the roots of the lily pads and the stare of a wary carp who looks from his world as we do from ours? We must find time on our journey to read, play a game, or simply sit and wonder at the marvels around us, for death will come in its own time…

The Real Robert Frost

Blog Posted:2/21/2014 11:39:00 AM

There are events in life one never forgets. For me, one of those was going to Robert Frost’s farm in Derry, NH to hear him recite poetry. It was just 3 years before he died and I was just eleven years old. Everything is a blur now except for one thing. After he recited “Mending Wall” he asked if there were questions and being a 6th grader I asked what the poem meant and he responded, “Exactly what it says son, exactly what it says”. Years later, after reading much about Frost, I found that one of his pet peeves were those that constantly dissected his poems in attempts to find deeper meanings. Frost was, one of those poets who took life and wrote about events and things that affect all of us, but we take for granted. He wrote about them in an easy to understand way so that each of us could derive our own feelings. So, analysis like the one below and the pages of analysis on “Mending Wall” etc. used to aggravate him. He much preferred that each reader derive their own meaning just as we all do from our individual muses.

Neither Out Far Nor In Deep

The people along the sand All turn and look one way. They turn their back on the land. They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass A ship keeps raising its hull; The wetter ground like glass Reflects a standing gull.

The land may vary more; But wherever the truth may be--- The water comes ashore, And the people look at the sea.

They cannot look out far. They cannot look in deep. But when was that ever a bar To any watch they keep?

First of all, of course, the poem is simply there, in indifferent unchanging actuality; but our thought about it, what we are made to make of it, is there too, made to be there. When we choose between land and sea, the human and the inhuman, the finite and the infinite, the sea has to be the infinite that floods in over us endlessly, the hypnotic monotony of the universe that is incommensurable with us—everything into which we look neither very far nor very deep, but look, look just the same. And yet Frost doesn't say so—it is the geometry of this very geometrical poem, its inescapable structure, that says so. There is the deepest tact and restraint in the symbolism; it is like Housman's

Stars, I have seen them fall, But when they drop and die No star is lost at all From all the star-sown sky.

The toil of all that be Helps not the primal fault: It rains into the sea And still the sea is saltuote>

But Frost's poem is flatter, greyer, and at once tenderer and more terrible, without even the consolations of rhetoric and exaggeration- there is no "primal fault" in Frost's poem, but only the faint Biblical memories of "any watch they keep." What we do know we don't care about; what we do care about we don't know: we can't look out very far, or in very deep; and when did that ever bother us? It would be hard to find anything more unpleasant to say about people than that last stanza; but Frost doesn't say it unpleasantly —he says it with flat ease, takes everything with something harder than contempt, more passive than acceptance. And isn't there something heroic about the whole business, too-something touching about our absurdity? If the fool persisted in his folly he would become a wise man, Blake said, and we have persisted. The tone of the last lines—or, rather, their careful suspension between several tones, as a piece of iron can be held in the air between powerful enough magnets—allows for this too. This recognition of the essential limitations of man, without denial or protest or rhetoric or palliation, is very rare and very valuable, and rather usual in Frost's best poetry. One is reminded of Empson's thoughtful and truthful comment on Gray's "Elegy": "Many people, without being communists, have been irritated by the complacence in the massive calm of the poem … And yet what is said is one of the permanent truths; it is only in degree that any improvement of society would prevent wastage of human powers; the waste even in a fortunate life, the isolation even of a life rich in intimacy, cannot but be felt deeply, and is the central feeling of tragedy."

I did enjoy this blog, Craig, even with the formatting errors. I like the fact that Frost did not want his poetry analyzed and picked apart for deeper meaning...it gives, and allows the reader to interpret the poems in their own way, to let the poem speak to each of us, which is relative to all. Enjoyed. love and hugs, Catie :)

Craig, something about your text running off the page. I just did a little test and I noticed that my hand fits neatly across other blogs here at Soup, but when I come to yours, the text goes beyond the reach of my palm. That suggests to me that somehow your blogs are overextending the natural width of a typcial blog and I don't think the ads have anything to do with it. Is your member area not giving you the right size box to work in? What if you just typed them out with fewer words across each line? Let me know . It could help.

Craig, I just loved that poem. That is the kind of poem that I love to read when I find it here on Soup, and I have met poets who write this way consistently. What a shame they will not ever gain the stature of Mr. Frost. For some reason, all that seemed to have ended in the last century. I don't even know what it takes any more for a poet to get a reputation like Frost had! Anyway, much enjoyed.

This insightful blog is in reference to one of my all time favorite poets, and somehow makes me think that Robert Frost had a deeper recognition of the world, because he could take it in as a whole, without the ruffles and ribbons, the frills or folly. It reminds me of a video I just watched about Cell phones. Where people were paying so much attention, so busy taking pictures with their cell phones of what was happening in front of them, they were missing the moment.